I think this week, after the kids leave, I’m going to work on getting the craft room straightened out again & maybe try to get that love seat out of there & give it to Rhi & Nicole, since all it does in there is take up valuable storage/work space. Without that in there, I might be able to get one of those folding treadmills to use when I find time. I may get one anyway, to put in my office, even if I can’t get the love seat out, just because I need to exercise so badly & hate to do it in the heat.

I’m looking forward to getting back to work on my signs and hopefully, I’ll get them finished pretty soon & we’ll figure out a display method for them. I have a n order for 3 custom signs coming up, so I need to find my drill bit so I can get the holes drilled on the boards for those. I think I need to buy a new paint pen for those, too, since my others are used up. I plan to start on Friday, at some point & will hopefully be able to get to the bath salt at that time & start making my labels. I can’t really do it yet, I don’t know what I have at the current time. I can start them, and get everything done but the name of the fragrance & the printing before then, though.

It’s less than two months until faire & even though I’m doing fairly well on my own time schedule, it feels like I’m running so far behind. I still need to see what bath salts are left from last season, find my fragrances, make replacements & get everything packaged & ready to go in the booth. I need to buy some more silk flowers and leaves to decorate the booth with, we need to put up the gazebos so Vicki can see if her plans for the encampment will come together like she wanted. I need to sew the walls for both of them (that’s 40 feet of fabric for each!) and finish up my signs. I haven’t decided how to display them yet, though Vicki & I have talked about getting some lattice so she can display her fairy wings & I can put signs on it, so we may do that.

I know Dawn is behind with pouches again, I’m not sure how that happened, but it did, I imagine she’ll get a few more finished before faire, but I’m afraid that she’s burning out on them. I tried to get her to make a few different types so that it wasn’t as likely that she’d get bored, but she likes the one type & that’s that. It’ll all come together, it’s just the time of year I always start to stress out.

My niece’s graduation was good. She had a little speech to give about how she ended up at the school she was graduating from (it’s an alternative high school) & what it had done for her that had all of us crying.

Thursday afternoon, we went to Rhi’s friend, Caela’s graduation, which was quite nice. They presented an honorary diploma to a man who had been storming Utah beach the day of his high school graduation. It was very touching & he had some important things to say to the graduates.

That night was Rhi’s graduation, which was just amazing. She was so nervous and excited, then she ran into friends & started to calm down a bit. A lot of our friends & family showed up to cheer her on & she told me it sounded like a ton of people when we started cheering. She got her diploma, stepped to the stairs & did a little dance of joy. I posted pictures in another post, if you want to see them.

We dropped by a friend’s birthday party after that, they gave Rhi her gift & I took her to the party her friends were giving for her & dropped Erin off with friends & then came home. Rhi got home sometime after midnight & started packing again. She had everything ready to move on Friday, paid most of her rent & started moving that afternoon. She really loves her new home & has had lots of friends visiting, which she seems to really enjoy. Just think, if she hadn’t pulled her head out, I’d be buying bridal lingerie for her & waiting for her wedding this weekend. I’m so thankful she decided against that, no matter what has happened since then. She would have been miserable with him.

Today, I think I’m just going to relax, make some chili & try to recuperate from the past month. Tomorrow, I’ll finish cleaning out Rhi’s old room & getting it ready to become my office.

The kids made it here yesterday, just fine. The bus was an hour late, but that’s okay, they’re here & that’s all that matters. Troy & I both really like Keri, she’s a real sweetheart & it’s so obvious that she adores Garrett. She’s a great match for him & feels like she’s family already. I took them over to Dawn’s last night to celebrate his 21st birthday (8 months late) and he got to meet a few people he hadn’t met before & she got to meet everyone. She fit in with everyone really well & said she had a great time, which is always a good sign.

I felt bad for them though, we kept them out until almost 3am & they were exhausted. I’m sure that my floor felt like one of those nice adjustable beds by the time they got to lay down & go to sleep. My bed felt pretty good, too!

I’m way behind on getting signs finished, mostly because there are so many people around & so many things to get done that I haven’t even finished the two I made as signs for the booth itself. I should do that this afternoon, honestly, so that it’s out of the way & I feel like I can do other things. Yes, I’ll get pictures up soon, right now, Erin is in my craft room crashing there & it’s been difficult to get in & get to them, but as soon as he heads back down the road, I’ll take some.

Other stuff that’s going on is pretty exciting. I plan to buy myself a laptop when we get our tax stimulus check, but since we won’t get it until July. I was starting to get a little bit bummed out. Troy managed to find me one from work, that they’re getting rid of & so, I may have it next week. I know that I’ll need to get a wireless box for it & probably some more ram, but that’s ok, it’ll be something I can use until I can get my own & t hen Troy can have it after that. I’m really excited about it.

He also managed to score himself a nice little Pocket PC, that he’s playing with & really loves. We sat, waiting for the bus & played a game together. It was a lot of fun & I wasn’t quite ready to be done with it when the bus finally came! I think it’s great that he’s able to do that type of thing with the people at work & the IT department, it really has saved us some serious money over the years. He works for a really good company and I’m so thankful for that.

I just got back from picking Garrett & Keri up at the “bus station.” (It’s a gas station actually) I have always thought of the bus as being the mode of transportation you take when you have to get somewhere, but can’t afford to go any other way, like a necessity, not a luxury type thing. Today, there were people waiting to get on that obviously felt differently about it & were using it for vacation travel, or at least, in my opinion, it looked that way. There was a man standing there with all of his luggage and he & his wife’s golf bags. He has very nice luggage, the golf equipment was quite nice & they were both very well dressed, so it really did look like a vacation they were either going on or coming back from.

To me, there is nothing worse than having to ride the bus. I rode it from Pueblo, Colorado to Kansas City, Missouri when I was 11 or 12 & I swore I’d never go on another bus ride again, unless I had no other choice & I haven’t. Both of my sons have ridden on them, on numerous occasions. They both hate them, but at times, there is no other way to get here & so that’s what they do. I guess I just never thought that maybe there were people who actually enjoy that mode of transportation, because I hate it so much.

I’ve been slowly working on getting my bedroom cleaned today, while I wait for Troy to get home. I started out by sorting a bunch of laundry for washing right after I got out of bed. I found out that the nice, heavy plastic bag I had put all of my bedding in to keep clean, had gotten torn & everything had spilled out of it. It was all at the bottom of a pile of dirty stuff & garbage. I really wish I’d keep on top of the bedroom & make sure it’s clean all of the time. I hate it the way it is now, it’s certainly not a sanctuary by anyone’s standards.

So, I’ll be donating all of the clothes I don’t love to wear to a local thrift store & giving away what will fit my friends, and then I’ll only have clothes I enjoy wearing in here. I plan to get a big plastic bin for all of my Faire garb, so that can be washed & put away where I can find it, too. I’m sick of living this way & I’m tired of being a disorganized slob.

I’m so excited that school is almost finished for the Summer (well, for my kid, it’s finished forever on the 22nd). I’m so looking forward to the long, lazy days and warm nights. I can’t wait to get my yard into shape, the lawn mowed, flowers planted & everything straightened up & looking pretty. I think this payday, if we have any money after Rhi’s graduation party, we’ll go shopping for a little outdoor furniture, so we can enjoy our yard that much more. I really want to make the very best of this summer, with plenty of camping, grilling & hanging out. I don’t want Autumn to make her appearance & have a bunch of regrets about what I didn’t do over the Summer this time around.

I’m really excited today, too, Garrett & his fiance, Keri, will be here tomorrow morning & I just can’t wait! I probably won’t sleep very well tonight, knowing that they’re on the way here. They probably won’t either, not being on the bus all that time. It’s going to be an exciting week coming up, with a lot going on. I hope everything turns out how it’s supposed to!

Have you ever wished you were one of those people who could see a bunch of stuff lying in a pile & not see what it is, but what it can become? I have & very often, too. I may just be too much of a concrete thinker to do that. I can’t even see a roll of hemp & some beads & picture what it can become, let alone some copper wire, a few diodes and an HDMI switch and see jewelry. Once I get started on a project, like a sign or something & I have the basic image down there or in my mind, I can & usually do get very creative with it, but I have a hard time imagining the full, finished piece before it’s finished.

If I’ve made something before, then it gets easier, but it still doesn’t seem to ever come out the way I imagined it, you know? Am I the only one? Is there anyone else out there that’s selectively creative? Anyone? Bueller?

I had planned to spend all of my own paychecks on getting my faire booth stocked & ready to go, but I forgot about car insurance coming due in June. It’s not a big deal, or anything we can’t afford, it’s just a minor bump in the road, really & a reminder that I need to start earlier next time. I’ll just make sure I star putting money into our savings account and saving my checks & we’ll be fine. I should still be able to get a few more things for the booth that way.

I really ought to write all of these things down so that I quit forgetting when they come due, you know? I used to do my bill notebook a year at a time & I never forgot that sort of thing, I guess I need to start doing that again.